There’s no question that new vehicle sales figures in Canada last month were encouraging, showing significant gains over January through March as more consumers shopped for their next car. A total of 171,807 units also represents an 8.9 per cent gain over last April’s numbers and also a turnaround from January, February and March 2013, which saw declines of 2.3, 3.3 and 0.7 per cent compared with a year ago.
Interesting observations at present, seem to be the surge in interest among mainstream, volume brands, particularly those of the Detroit three, since Chrysler, Ford and General Motors have all showed gains in both volume and market share this year, a trend that continued last month (Ford witnessed a 7.8 per cent sales gain over April 2012, while Chrysler saw a 4.5 per cent increase and GM 2.9 per cent boost). That put Detroit automakers collectively at a 45.9 per cent market share for the month (this time last year it was 44.3 per cent).
Other notable gains were witnessed by Nissan, which saw a sizeable 17.6 per cent gain in volume over April last year, posting 7,416 deliveries for the month, along with Volkswagen, which saw sales increase by 12 per cent thanks to 6,248 unit sales. Among import brands, Mitsubishi was a strong performer too, reporting a significant increase in deliveries this April (2,265) compared with the same time last year (1,306).
On the luxury side, Acura saw a big surge in April, reporting gains of 39.3 per cent over last year thanks to 2,086 deliveries. Other luxury brands that saw gains were Porsche (23.2 per cent), Jaguar (15.4 per cent), Infiniti (8.2 per cent) and Audi (6.1 per cent) though overall the trend was downward. Based on April’s results it seems almost as if Canadians are going back to their roots, purchasing value-oriented passenger cars and trucks (light truck demand continues to grow — up five per cent this year and now representing 56.2 per cent of the overall vehicle market share in Canada (this time last year, trucks accounted for 54.3 per cent).
